New Tests and Treatments for Lyme Disease

Once assumed to be a regional disease largely bound to the northeastern United States and spread by bacteria transported only by deer ticks, Lyme experts now report that cases of the illness have been documented in every state. There is also evidence to suggest that it can be spread through other means, including mosquitoes and body fluids. According to JoAnne Whitaker, MD, of Bowen Research Laboratory in Florida, "Lyme disease is not just a tick-borne infection. I have found the bacteria in every single mosquito that I've examined, from blood all over California and all over Florida. Dr. Whitaker believes that "Lyme is the most prevalent disease there is. "

Dr. Tod Thoring is a naturopath and the owner of Pacific Natural Medicine and Skin Care Center in Arroyo Grande, California. In his family practice, Thoring has observed a steady increase in the frequency of patients with Lyme. Although the evidence suggests that Lyme is on the rise through the country, many people have been told by medical professionals that Lyme disease does not exist in California.

"The medical community is in its infancy in learning about this disease, "says Dr. Thoring.

Lyme is considered a difficult disease to diagnose and treat. Lyme symptoms mimic hundreds of other diseases, and has prompted the medical community's nickname for the disease: the new Great Imitator. The Lyme bug is a spirochete, the same type of spiral-shaped bacterium that is responsible for syphilis. Capable of moving through body tissue as well as the bloodstream, the spirochete can evade the body's immune system, change from a spiral into a ball and pull a protective shell, a fibrin, over itself.

Prognosis for recovering from Lyme is better if the disease is caught and treated early on. However, arriving at a correct diagnosis is often complicated. One reason for this is Lyme symptoms vary from patient to patient, and may not appear immediately after infection. Lyme symptoms can be alarming or bizarre, they can include hallucinations and severe mood swings, and patients are frequently dismissed as psychotic or ignored by medical doctors who are dangerously uninformed about the increase of this endemic illness.

Diagnosis is further complicated because the common test for Lyme, the Western Blot, yields unreliable results. It tests for antibodies, which are not always present and detectable in the Lyme patient. Negative clinical results do not necessarily mean that a person is free of Lyme.

Unreliable tests and unreasonable expectations of the results serves to prolong the suffering of Lyme patients who are often done in the controversial over treatment protocol. To mitigate this problem, Lyme experts currently advise that if Lyme is suspected and the patient is showing symptoms typical of the disease, the patient should be treated as if the disease is present, even when positive test results are pending.

"When you first get Lyme disease, your body does not produce any antibodies, and so the antibody tests are not any good, and if you're very far along in the disease sometimes an antibody test is not any good either, "says Dr. Whitaker.

Over the past five years Dr. Whitaker has developed and patented a new test for Lyme, the Q-RrBb, which she claims is more reliable and produces results more quickly than the Western Blot test. Q-RrBb stands for Quantitative Rapid Identification of Borrelia Burgdorferi, the name of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Instead of detecting antibodies as an indication of the bacteria's presence, the Q-RiBb tests for antigens. says that the new test is better, "because we look for the bug itself."

Lyme disease patients are given standard antibiotics to kill the bacteria and address the co-infections which commonly accompany the illness. The duration, type of delivery and the antibiotic best suited for treatment are all points of controversies in the medical community. According to the protocol promoted by the Center for Disease Control, Lyme disease can be cured with a 30-day course of antibiotics. But Lyme disease expert Lee Cowden, MD, is concerned that few people with Lyme can be cured within that amount of time.

The standard antibiotic treatment is not as successful as antimicrobials, according to Dr. Cowden's studies. "Unless you start treating the infection during the first three to six weeks, "he says," patients tend to have to get repeated rounds of antibiotics longterm, for years and years and years. "Cowden devotes much of his time educating others medical doctors about the use of antimicrobial herbs to help patients heal from Lyme disease, and as a result of intensive medical studies, has developed a protocol with a high success rate.

"We want to try and get as many doctors as possible familiar with these protocols, "says Dr. Cowden." They're working well, they're non-toxic, they're not giving the opposite reactions like a lot of people see, with the fungal overgrowth from standard antibiotics. And the patients are getting well and staying well even though the basic protocol is stopped at some point. "

The studies and doctors quoted in the article are all included in the Lyme Disease Research Database Conversations with Lyme Experts Interview Series .